Time Zone

By John Walters

In a world whose inhabitants routinely visit famous historical events, two jaded road-weary tourists take a holiday in an isolated retrograde enclave where time travel is forbidden.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Walters
• Release date: Sep 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223975984

John Walters

John Walters recently returned to the United States after thirty-five years abroad. He lives in Seattle, Washington. He attended the 1973 Clarion West science fiction writing workshop and is a member of Science Fiction Writers of America. He writes mainstream fiction, science fiction and fantasy, and memoirs of his wanderings around the world.

Book preview

Time Zone

I don't know if it's the altitude that's important or the isolation. Maybe it's both.

Anyway, to get there, you take a highway going north from the vast city with its multiple chronologies. After you've traveled over one hundred kilometers, you turn off into the hills through which the ancient river runs. Small roads with many tight turns take you deep into the sparsely populated countryside. In these parts, the peasants whose cottages you see eschew time travel for religious reasons. But you're not here to deal with them, of course.

Just before you reach your destination, you park your vehicle in a spacious lot. From that point, you have to continue on foot. The path zigzags up a slope until, out of breath, you reach the entry station on the near side of the bridge that crosses the narrow valley between the squat rocky hill and the plateau of volcanic tuff on which the town sits.

Here at the entry station your internal chrono-chip is neutralized, and the guards confiscate any time travel accessories you might be carrying. You receive a stipend, the same set amount for everyone, which supposedly suffices for a comfortable stay in this place where the inhabitants still use currency as a medium of exchange. Only then are you permitted to walk up the bridge's steep grade as you gawk through the rails at the lovely river valley far below.

The town's name is Civita, which simply means city. It is one of the many getaway places known as Time Zones that have sprung up recently in exotic locales: havens from the complex, multifaceted collage of eras of which the modern world is composed. Time travel at these sites is forbidden; only chronological time